


Put Your Lights On

by Horribibble



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt Isaac, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Lost Stiles, M/M, Pack Bonding, Pack Cuddles, Pack Feels, Smart Stiles, The Bad Shit Always Happens to Stiles, Unexplained Amnesia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:43:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horribibble/pseuds/Horribibble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has the distinct feeling that he has been hurt often, and that a number of people have had the honor. He eyes the trees at the roadside and wonders if he would not be better off living with wolves.</p><p>And then he remembers, There are no wolves in California. </p><p>---</p><p>After an incident leaves Stiles with a damaged memory and little sense of security, it's up to Derek to take him in and fix him piece by piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No Wolves in California

**Author's Note:**

> I tend to write a decent amount of random stuff on the road. This happened while I was replaying Santana's "Put Your Lights On" on the I10 across Texas. 
> 
> A YouTube video of the song can be found [here.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCwDIC1O8lI)
> 
> Also, for anyone rooting for more of Honeymooning, it's coming. Really soon.

Stiles spends minutes, maybe hours—hours, maybe days—days, maybe weeks—wandering along the side of the highway. It must be his name, he thinks, because he can remember a thundering chorus of voices calling it, but his is not with them.

He tests the sound out to make sure—his voice, his tongue, the parts of him lodged in his mouth and throat, fond acquaintances of his lungs. He makes soft _ooh_ sounds to feel the stopping and guttering in his throat.

He reverses it, once or twice, forming the _hoo hoo_ sounds common to the owl’s call. He knows what owls are, and the names of some of the plants at the side of the road. He knows that the road is made of _asphalt_ , and that the lines in the center are made of _paint_. He knows that he is wearing _clothing , _and that the clothing is made of _cotton, denim, and flannel._ He even knows that the thing in his hand is a _baseball bat_ and not a _mammalia chiroptera._

He can’t remember how or why he knows these things, but he thinks, with a little smile, that perhaps it means he is very clever. He thinks that until small tremors start in his fingers and move to engulf his hands in half-scattered patterns.

 _Uh oh_ , he thinks, _this clever body is sick._

When nothing worse comes to pass for a while, he shuffles his feet in something resembling a design, tapping the bat lightly against his leg. _Or maybe it just feels like dancing._

He knows what dancing is. It is when a body moves in rhythm with music or with no music or with a little bit of both. Sometimes, he thinks, there are things called _dances,_ plural, that are _events_ where people don’t always dance.

He remembers coaxing someone into dancing, or maybe more than one someone. He remembers first a girl, reddish, with sharp eyes and soft lips pressed lightly against him. He remembers second a man, tall and dark with strong arms. He remembers tugging at them.

He remembers the smell of smoke, of burning flesh, of holding someone down and of holding someone up. He remembers warm bodies and cold steel.

He has the distinct feeling that he has been hurt often, and that a number of people have had the honor. He eyes the trees at the roadside and wonders if he would not be better off living with wolves.

And then he remembers, _There are no wolves in California._

Which is where he is. That part is true, but he gets a strange feeling that that is a very big lie.

Then he hears the sound of _tires_ on the road, and he feels his heart prepare to cut and run, to dive into the woods where there is maybe a 50% chance that something will hurt him, and a 50% chance that something—he isn’t certain _what—_ will keep him safe.

But then a strong, certain voice calls out, “Stiles!”

It is one of the voices in the thundering chorus, one of the voices he knew to run towards, rather than from— _mostly_. He turns, pivoting on one foot, and sees a black thing that he knows to be a _Camaro_ , a very nice sort of _car._ It means something, socially, not always positive, but to Stiles it feels like a friendly sort of thing.

He wants to pat its nose— _hood_ , he thinks.

And then he sees the dark man, the one with the arms and the rolling eyes. The one who does not smile much, but will probably not hurt him if he asks to dance again.

The man’s face looks like it hurts as he comes toward Stiles, and Stiles is concerned. He doesn’t run, doesn’t lift the bat—because the bat is protection, that much he knows—but waits.

He waits until a hand reaches the back of his neck, reassuring and leading and claiming him as maybe-one-of-the-wolves that doesn’t live in California.

He looks into bright hazel eyes and says, _“Derek.”_

He is right, of course. He knows.


	2. Not That Kind of Vet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aconitum delphinifolium, aconitum napellus, and a visit to a friend who may have once been a fighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to request, this story is being continued. I do hope I can continue to come up with ideas. For now, let's see how Stiles does with a bit of encouragement. 
> 
> I apologize for any errors, as this is currently un-beta'd.

The trees move too fast for Stiles to name a single one of them, even if he does know what they’re called. They flit by the window in a staccato pattern— _zm zm zm – zm—zm zm zm—_ and slowly, Stiles feels his eyes begin to close.

This means that he is falling asleep, because he is very tired. He is very tired because his body needs to rest. It has apparently been through quite a lot, even if he can’t remember a thing but an extended list of ranunculales; the foremost among them _aconitum delphinifolium_ and _aconitum napellus._

But when he begins to close his eyes, the car’s smooth path is interrupted. Derek jerks, and the car follows him. He rights their course, but keeps looking at Stiles with the same hurt— _worry_ , he is _worried_. He looks between the boy and the road, snaps his fingers in front of Stiles’ face.

He doesn’t understand what it is that Derek wants.

If he did, he would likely give it to him. He knows that he _likes_ Derek the same way that he knows he can _trust_ him, it is sometimes questionable, but never in question.

Liking people means doing things for them so that they smile. He does not feel that Derek has smiled much, in whatever span of time they’ve known each other, and he resolves to like him better once he wakes up.

Except Derek won’t let him sleep.

He presses a warm, firm hand against the back of Stiles’ neck, taps the skin with his thumb, and says, “Stiles, I need you to stay awake for me. Can you do that?”

Oh. Oh, that’s what he wants.

Maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he wants to talk. Or maybe he’s worried that something is wrong, very wrong, with the way Stiles’ head hurts—with the strange way he can’t understand why Derek’s nails are so very sharp.

“Talk to me. Come on, on a good day, I can’t get you to shut up. Say something.”

“Derek.”

“Something other than my name.”

“Stiles.”

Derek _sighs_ , Stiles thinks, because Derek is frustrated. It makes Stiles frustrated, too. He would like to remember what it is that he should say, because Derek’s hand is warm and the way his eyes know him makes him feel safe.

“What.” He tries.

“Tell me…something you remember. Anything.”

“ _Strix occidentalis occidentalis._ ”

“Strix what?”

“ _Strix occidentalis occidentalis._ ” He repeats, patiently, then, “A California Spotted Owl. _Hoo hoo_.”

Derek looks mixed, the way that Stiles feels in his stomach. He wants Derek’s thumb to keep tapping at his skin, but it’s still, now.

“You’re scared.”

Derek looks at him again, and for a moment his eyes look wild and lost—just like Stiles, looking up at _strix occidentalis occidentalis_ and wondering if it had any clue why he was so sticky and peppered with red stuff or whether there were any _mammalia chiroptera_ around.

“What makes you say that?” His voice is thick as he stares through the windshield, but his hand doesn’t move from Stiles’ neck.

“Something is wrong with me.”

“It’s nothing we can’t fix.”

“Okay.”

“I’m taking you to Deaton. I can’t take you home like this.”

“Deaton.”

“He’s a vet. But he can…he’ll take care of you.”

“A vet.” Stiles blinks slowly, focusing on the yellow lights speeding through the air as they leave the trees for tall, looming streetlamps. “When did he fight?”

“We don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

Deaton is soft.

His face is soft, his hands are soft, and his voice is soft.

It makes Stiles feel less frightened by all of the touching. Deaton is very careful to keep his hands visible and, when he can’t, he announces what it is that he intends to do.

He says that he would rather get to more pressing injuries first, but Stiles can remember what a _needle and thread_ are just as well as he can remember the baseball bat leaning in the corner, and he will be having none of that until he is certain that Deaton is as okay as Derek says he is.

First he washes the places where Stiles has gathered patches of sticking red—which stings. Then, he applies something that he calls _antiseptic_ —which _burns._ After that, there is ointment and bandaging.

Deaton speaks to Derek as he works, and the deeper, tenser tones in Derek’s voice keep Stiles from bolting.

“Where did you _find_ him, Derek?”

“He was wandering in the preserve, like we thought. Just walking along the roadside.”

“And you say he can’t remember much.”

“I can’t tell. But when I mentioned Scott, he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“Derek, that’s serious.”

“I’d never have guessed that.”

The older man sighs, “You can’t take him home like this.”

Stiles blinks up at Deaton, “He can’t?”

“No, Stiles, I—is there any chance I can take a look at the gashes, now?”

Stiles bites his lip, considering. He looks to Derek, who finally closes the distance to the exam table and replaces his hand on the back of Stiles’ neck.

Deaton goes about his work, and out of the corner of his eye, Stiles can see a quivering blackness in the threaded veins of Derek’s forearm. He wants to ask, wants to articulate syllable after syllable, but then Derek is catching his eyes with a soft, pulsing red, and Stiles feels himself fall silent.

“He can stay with me.” Derek says softly, and Stiles wonders, _But he said you couldn’t take me home._

 

 

 


	3. Maybe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles has upset a balance. Isaac tips the scale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter made me cry. Actually cry.  
> There was weeping.
> 
> The song in this chapter is 'Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop'.

For a few terrifying moments, Stiles has no idea what is happening. Derek slides the grate closed and leans back against the rear wall, and then the room begins to move. Stiles lunges for him and grabs onto his arms, trying to bury himself inside the perceived safety of Derek’s skin.

He knows that Derek has survived an awful lot, and will survive a lot more. He doesn’t feel reassured until Derek pats him awkwardly on the back and mumbles, “It’s an elevator, Stiles—a shitty one, but still stable.”

“Elevator.” Stiles repeats, frowning, “It…”

“Elevates. There’s a system of cables and pulleys that hoists and lowers this little box.”

Stiles looks up at him, still unsettled. He appreciates that the knowledge, once reacquired, seems to fit in with the acceptable and valid information piling up in his brain, but it doesn’t make him any more comfortable. He must have been all right before, but now he just feels like the bottom could drop out at any moment.

Derek makes an awkward face for a moment before tightening his arms, slotting Stiles against him. “Next time we’ll take the stairs.”

 

* * *

 

 A boy Stiles’ age with dirty blonde hair and massive blue-gray eyes is waiting for them at the top. He looks at Stiles, wrapped around Derek like an especially affectionate _cephalopod_ , and then at the man he’s clinging to with a bewildered expression.

But as soon as Stiles takes him in, it’s like the bottom drops out, and all he can feel is confusion. There are flashes and flickers under his skin, like a thousand one synapses are firing, shrieking for him to get out.

He sees the red cuff of his hoodie, sees the welts and the bruises and blemishes, and the impossible canting of a head. He sees promise and promises revoked, and it frightens him. There is panic.

He falls into Derek and hears him rumble, “Isaac, you’re going to need to leave.”

“Leave? I _live_ here.”

He can almost feel the guilt on Derek’s skin, ashy and stuck tight. He peeks at the boy—at Isaac—and he asks, “You do?”

 

* * *

 

Isaac doesn’t leave.

Stiles won’t let Derek make him. Instead, he distances himself from the intruder and…whatever Derek is to him.

Sometimes he sits in the den, the gaping main space of Derek’s loft, on a seat opposite wherever it is Isaac has chosen to rest. Isaac doesn’t like him, Stiles can tell. He tolerates him, but he doesn’t like him.

He asks once about someone named Scott—Stiles remembers, _Scott_ , Derek knows a Scott—but Derek won’t let him say any more. Isaac looks frustrated for a while after that, looking at Stiles as if he’s given up on something he shouldn’t have.

It makes him feel like crying.

So he says, “I’m sorry, Isaac.”

And Isaac stares and stares.

 

* * *

 

He has upset a balance. 

 

* * *

 

A few days into his stay, a girl with brown hair and shaded eyes comes to the loft. Derek stands just a bit before him, like a shield, and Stiles can’t understand why.

Looking at this girl— _Cora_ —doesn’t hurt him. He doesn’t feel the guilt of knowing and not knowing the way he does when Isaac looks at him. As if he’d almost gained some kind of trust and then broken it before the other boy could hand it over.

But when he looks at Cora, he doesn’t feel guilt, just suspicion.

She doesn’t trust him.

She takes a step toward Derek, and then stumbles back two when he _growls_ at her, low and soft. _People don’t do that,_ Stiles thinks, _people don’t make that noise._

But then she growls back, and her eyes turn a pretty shade of gold. She asks, “What the hell is so special about this kid, Derek?”

She doesn’t know him at all.

Stiles is almost happy, but not knowing is not a happy thing anymore.

 

* * *

 

Cora storms out almost as suddenly as she arrived.

Derek tells Stiles that they don’t really know each other.

“Who is she?”

“My sister.”

“She doesn’t know me.”

“She’s…new.”

“Does anyone know me?”

Derek looks like he wants to answer, but he can’t.

He just can’t.

 

* * *

 

Stiles doesn’t know anything, can’t remember anything, and he keeps hearing Deaton say, over and over, that maybe things would come back on their own.

Maybe.

Maybe maybe maybe.

 _I've seen the paths that your eyes wander down, I wanna come too._  
I think that possibly, maybe I'm falling for you.

But that isn’t Deaton. He doesn’t know who it is. He hums it, bar by bar, and Derek tells him once that it’s Landon Pigg, but that isn’t right, either.

He shakes his head and goes to sit in the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

Being in the kitchen is familiar, even if this particular kitchen is not.

Stiles realizes with a bubbling, bursting feeling of joy in his chest that he can name nearly all of the utensils and appliances in the room. He knows them, and remembers the way they look and feel in use.

He can roll out a dozen pie crusts in his head. He pops the ‘p’s of ‘pumpkin pie’, and feels warm and safe and full of smiling. It’s like falling through the air and into a pair of waiting arms.

He knows that feeling.

He holds on to it.

He goes to find Isaac, because Isaac could use a feeling like that.

 

* * *

  

Stiles finds Isaac under his bed, staring at nothing in particular.

He didn’t knock or ask if he could come in. He just shuffled by the door and ducked down to look at the blonde under the mattress.

“I’m sorry about Cora.” He says.

“She’ll come back. She always does. We’re not close anyway.”

“Oh. Derek said she lives here, too.”

“Recently, yeah.”

“But not me.”

Isaac turns his head to look at Stiles—really _look—_ and his face seems softer. His eyes are still wide, but more open now. He sighs and scoots over a little and Stiles crawls under with him.

They stare up at the springs coiling together just above their heads, and Isaac asks, searching, “You really don’t remember anything?”

“Maybe.” Stiles answers, and then he sings, “ _If I didn't know you, I'd rather not know. If I couldn't have you, I'd rather be alone._ ”

 

* * *

  

“Isaac is hurting.” Stiles says to Derek one morning. “Did you know Isaac is hurting?”

Derek looks at him sideways and furrows his brow, like it hurts him to think about it. Like he’s frustrated, but Stiles doesn’t feel guilty this time. It’s good that Derek worries, sometimes, because Derek is strong, and without him around, the rest of them might as well sit quietly in a handbasket to hell.

At least, it seems that way to Stiles.

He might be biased.

“How do you know that Isaac is hurting, Stiles?”

He says it the same way he says, ‘Do you remember this, Stiles?’, and it agitates him. It’s _agitating_ that he can’t put a finger on how or why he knows. He must have known before. Maybe Isaac told him once. Maybe someone else told  him, but as of right now, it’s instinctive knowledge.

Elevators shouldn’t scare him.

Normal people don’t growl.

There is a Landon Pigg song stuck in his head, but Landon Pigg could not possibly have been the one to sing it to him.

“He’s not okay.”

  

* * *

 

It becomes a habit for Stiles to lay under the bed with Isaac, and for them to sit together on the couch.

They are not in love. They are in no way romantically involved, but he feels something in Isaac that he might feel himself.

People have hurt Isaac, too.

They’ve hurt him more often than they’ve hurt Stiles, which doesn’t sit right with him. He thinks, distantly, that he and Isaac must not have gotten along before, but that doesn’t mean that Isaac is a bad person.

Stiles doesn’t think that all that many people have made a habit of liking him.

Isaac knocks their knees together and jerks his head at the screen where a woman named Tyra Banks is scolding a girl about smiling with her eyes.

He turns and presses a kiss to one of Isaac’s, against the memory of a black, ugly bruise.

Isaac feels free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is insignificant.


	4. The Rise and Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles brushes against memories that he may or may not want to recall. Lydia tries her best to guide him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adjusted accordingly for recent events in-series, as heart-wrenching as they may be.  
> T_T
> 
> Written while listening to ["Anthem"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PEGDGxZdzA) by Emancipator. I would highly recommend it. I've been debating putting together a playlist for this story, which will likely be posted on tumblr, once I figure out how you all manage such fantastic graphics.

Derek doesn’t watch TV with them. He cooks and cleans, and Stiles feels in the back of his mind that maybe once he would have made a joke about Derek being a growling she-wolf, but he doesn’t now.

Derek is busy taking care of them, watching them, watching _Stiles_.

When he isn’t cooking or cleaning or watching, he’s on the phone.

Stiles overhears things like _I’m sorry_ and _sheriff_ and _it’s important_.

He hears, one day, “I don’t know what to do. He knew you, didn’t he? You were important to him. Please come.”

There are a lot of feelings.

He’s never heard Derek say _I’m sorry_ before, let alone _please_.

But most of all, he’s never heard him ask anyone over to see him. Someone is coming to see him. Someone who used to be important.

It doesn’t occur to him yet just how hard Derek must be working to manage the life that he can’t remember how to live.

He looks over at Isaac, who shrugs his shoulders, and they go back to watching the show.

 

 

* * *

 

Stiles can understand why he thought of Lydia as important, even if he can’t remember the feelings tied to it anymore.

She seems the type of person who must be important to an awful lot of people. Her hair is a striking dark strawberry blonde, an exact shade that feels particularly familiar, like _maybe,_ like warm pie and smiling.

He danced with her once, he remembers that feeling from the forest where he did not run with wolves. When he saw _strix occidentalis occidentalis. Hoo hoo._

He remembers something about her, something small, but _something._

But when she sees him, she doesn’t smile.

She speaks to him in clipped tones, as if she’s frustrated with him. It feels like the punishment he deserves for not remembering—a sense of academic failure, of not living up to par. He feels like he should do some sort of intellectual battle with Lydia, but as it is he can’t help but feel unprepared and insipid.

He fails to answer questions that he must have known the answers to before, and watches the corners of her lips turn down, still perfect, still pouting.

She is careful to avoid creasing her forehead or scrunching her nose the way Derek does. Her eyebrows are curved into a neat, arching line of judgment.

Isaac watches from the arm of the couch, eyes sympathetic and tired. They both understand that Lydia is a force of nature. Lydia will not stop until she is satisfied.

He gets the feeling that she never really is.

The unstoppable force versus the immovable object.  

She holds up a flash card, her eyes flying over the text and says, primly, “Incorrect. The answer is…”

Stiles deflates a little, realizing that if he _doesn’t_ remember, not only will he be failing Lydia, he will likely have to relearn more than just the entire history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. 

Lydia rattles off the next question, and suddenly he feels himself light up. There is knowledge there, curling on his tongue, spilling from his brain and into his mouth because there’s no filter there—there has _never_ been a filter there.

He remembers being slammed around and laughing and reading quick lines of archaic Latin in the world’s most desperate Google search _he knows what **Google** is_ and he fell asleep on a pile of papers once and there were lines of ink on his face and a crooked-jaw smile and—

“You know this one.” Isaac says, like it’s a thing of awe, a thing of beauty, and the memories slip away again, but into a much closer place. They’re somewhere. Not lost. He knows that now.

He says, “Emperor Caligula.”

Lydia smiles at him, her eyes sharp and bright, and for a moment it’s as if the sun is rising in his chest.

_I had you before._

* * *

 

“I remembered something today.” Stiles blurts without thinking.

Derek looks at him like he’s given him some kind of gigantic gift, and Stiles is absolutely positive that he has never seen that look on Derek’s face before. It makes him sad. It makes him feel like a horrid little monster, lower than the basest fauna, because all he remembered was a little bit of history and…well…

“Google. I know what Google is.”

Derek gives him another look, a _what the hell are you even_ look that Stiles recognizes from somewhere or sometime. It makes him puff up and smile a little before the expression abandons him, “Um…Latin. Did I…study Latin?”

Now it’s some kind of wonder in Derek’s eyes, “No. Yes. Not for school.”

“Why else would I study archaic Latin?”

“Lydia studied archaic Latin.” Derek smiles, teasing now.

Stiles pushes at his arm and Derek pushes back, only when Derek pushes, Stiles slams into a wall. The older man looks guilty, but Stiles bounces back, shaking his head. “You’re a jerk. I guess it makes sense. She’s smart, right?”

Confident. He feels confident for the first time since…well, since he can remember.

“So are you.”

He must be, he thinks. He made Derek Hale smile.

 

* * *

 

The next time Lydia comes for a visit, Isaac has convinced Derek to sit in and watch the inevitable flash card massacre.

It feels safe, now that he’s got something right. He understands a little bit more about Lydia after studying her expressions and movements. He can see the sharp intelligence and the wry amusement hiding in her pursed lips and searching eyes. He will know her again, and this time, she will have helped him to it.

“Were we friends?” He asks when she pauses to study the next card—Chemistry this time, which fills him with an inexplicable dread—and she stops short. Her eyes take him in like he’s some kind of alien subject.

She takes him in and cants her head just so before slowly conceding, “Almost.”

Isaac laughs.

 

* * *

 

 

 Once they finally get back around to the academic testing, they’re quick to tire of it. Stiles answers a fair number of questions after working formulas out on paper, but he can’t say he’s really happy about it.

In fact, he can’t resist the urge to whine, as if it’s some sort of reflex. He feels a brief flash of annoyance at himself, then, “What would I ever _use_ any of this for, anyway?”

Lydia’s nostrils actually _flare_ and her fingers twitch as if gripping something—as if gripping a flask.

Her lips do not move, but he can see them shaping words, slowly enunciating.

 _Mo-lo-tov_.

Suddenly Stiles is unsettled, slammed to the edge of his nerves by the smell of ignition in the air—sulfuric acid and flesh and cedar—and Lydia looks as if she might claw at him. Except it isn’t him she’s looking at it all.

Lydia is accessing a memory, Stiles thinks, one that they must share, but he doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to go there with her or see what she sees. There is a tugging at the base of his skull, trying to lull him in. He hears music, smells damp grass and evening fog. The edges of the world are steamy and quiet and a silhouette is aching in the open, a silhouette is approaching from afar.

At the tender flesh beneath his chin, there is a hint of sharpness. In his atmosphere, a dark and cloying gaze, wanting and destructive.

In his stomach, there are claws, tickling at the raw edge of his open skin.

He screams, and a wall of warm body slams in around him.

Derek holds him until he stops.

 

Isaac tells him that the thing he’s doing—the thing he doesn’t _realize_ he’s doing—is screaming.

 

* * *

 

Lydia says, “We’ll stop here for today.”

Her hands are darting and efficient, grabbing, shuffling, and straightening papers to hide the tensing and flexing in her hands and in her heart. Once or twice, she reaches up to graze her throat, a nervous gesture.

Stiles says, “Okay.” But it’s muffled by the Derek-shaped blanket that won’t let him go, because he might have stopped screaming, but he certainly isn’t finished shaking.

He can’t remember clearly whatever it is he remembered—it went to the same nearby space—but he knows that he is scared absolutely shitless.

Derek is making it better.

Isaac is watching them like a unicorn is being born before his very eyes, and this time Stiles is close enough to feel that Derek is _definitely_ growling. It radiates from his chest and belly and into Stiles’ skin.

The sensation is surprisingly reassuring.

Lydia sighs, rolling her eyes, and says, “I’ve got shopping to do.”

And Stiles remembers, _retail therapy_. It’s a thing. He remembers cringing, remembers surprisingly firm hands for a girl—remembers blonde hair and a throbbing ache in his head and waking up in a place he definitely shouldn’t have.

He gets the impression that he has woken up in a lot of places he shouldn’t have.

_You didn’t find me. You didn’t even look._

There’s a burgeoning sensation in the hollow of his chest, and he wants to hit something, to make noise, to be an absolute nuisance, impossible to overlook.

He tilts his head back, looks up at Derek with his throat bare and vulnerable. The growling flutters against him again, and he ignores it because Derek is weird, but he is also very warm and good at making sure he doesn’t wander into oncoming traffic wondering what the fuck he’s doing inside his own skin.

He asks, “Can we go, too?”

He does not need permission so much as he needs to know that Derek will be there.

“You want to go shopping?”

He says ‘shopping’ the same way he might say ‘shoving your head through a plate glass window’.

Stiles grins.

 

 

* * *

 

Lydia vetoes the group shopping option, because she refuses to ‘haul three fashion troglodytes through Macy’s’ with her. Isaac looks a little bit hurt, but Stiles slings an arm over his shoulder.   

“It’s okay,” He says, “I really liked that scarf the other day.”

And Isaac looks down at his flannel shirt with a mildly horrified expression.

Derek sees Lydia down the elevator before he goes to grab his keys. “Come on, we’re going for a drive.”

“But—” Isaac gestures toward the elevator, and Derek shoots him a _test me, man-child_ look that makes Stiles feel more giggly than guilty.

“It’s okay.” He says, “We can take the elevator. I’m okay.”

So they take the elevator down, Stiles holding his breath until he feels leather against his arms. Derek and Isaac press in just enough to support him without crowding, shoulders to shoulders and eyes faced forward.

He breathes again, and only flinches a little when the lift shudders to a stop on the ground floor.

 

 

* * *

 

Stiles doesn’t mind sitting in the back, but Derek smacks Isaac upside the head when he calls shotgun. Stiles chuckles as he lowers himself into the passenger seat, Derek waiting until his legs are in to shut the door behind him.

He glances into the backseat and feels only a little bit sorry at the pathetic look on Isaac’s face as he tries to rearrange his long legs in the cramped space allotted him.

Derek slides into the driver’s seat in what is most likely a practiced maneuver, shutting the door behind him, and Stiles swears he can hear Isaac whine—an actual canine _whining_ sound.

“There, there.” Stiles says, “We’ll let you out as soon as we get to the park, bud.”

Suddenly, his seatbelt becomes much tighter.

“I haven’t even turned on the car.” Derek says.

Like _can’t you kids at least wait **five minutes** to kill each other?_

Stiles gags a little, making a wonky noise in his throat that probably has something to do with laughter.

Isaac lets go with a subdued snort and thumps the back of his chair.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is slowly falling in love with Derek’s car. Not because it’s expensive, and not because it’s sleek, but because nothing can possibly catch them once Derek opens up the engine.

Nothing can catch them with Derek at the wheel.

He looks back at Isaac to find a waiting pair of soft, blue-gray eyes. Isaac feels it too, the safety, the contentment. He looks a little surprised when Stiles gives him a small, secretive smile, but he is quick to return it.

Stiles swears that he can swear a soft, muffled burr that has nothing to do with the purring of the engine. He turns in his seat, reaches out to clasp his wrist, pressing their pulses together, checking.

When Stiles glances back to the front just before letting go, he catches Derek watching them in the rear view mirror. The tension at the edges of his eyes and mouth seem to ease a little bit, but are by no means gone.

 

 

* * *

 

He knows, just knows, that Derek is hurting, too.

Stiles is beginning to think they _all_ are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can be found, as always, [here](http://littleplasticmonster.tumblr.com/).


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